What is Breast Implant Illness?
Breast Implant Illness or BII, is a term used to describe women with breast implants that may be creating symptoms including brain fog, chest pain, chronic pain, fatigue, hair loss, headaches, hormonal or neurologic issues, photosensitivity, rashes, and sleep disturbance.
They may be factors that could be connected to a saline or silicone breast implant. Some metals are used in the manufacturing process for saline (Allergan, Mentor, and Ideal) and for silicone (Allergan, Mentor, and Sientra) as approved for breast implants by the FDA. "Breast implant illness is a consolation symptom from fatigue to joint pain to brain fog to just not feeling well," said Dr. Ritu Chopra. "I have patients coming into my office saying, 'doc, I feel like I'm going to die.' It's that severe." Breast implant illness has not been formally recognized as an illness with no diagnostic testing yet. However, there are some tests for autoimmune diseases that can be done to help evaluate a patient and the cause of her symptoms.
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"Just because it is not an illness, and we don't have a test for it, it doesn't mean that it's not a problem," said Dr. Chopra. "In my opinion, if you have autoimmunity, you should stay away from all types of implants period because I think that can stimulate your immune system to rev up and then cause these very problems." "This is totally anecdotal, so the hundreds of women that I have done (surgery to remove implants), literally, and Drew (Dr. Ordon) has seen it first-hand too, 90% of these women are getting better (after implant removal)," said Dr. Chopra. "They may not get better the first week, they may not get better in six months, but by a year, a lot of their symptoms are completely gone."
